Star Wars - Ringers

  The kid was just too damned lucky.

  Ignoring the bustle of the busy Stassia squad room around him, Sergeant Zeck Tambell watched the holo again with an odd mix of personal envy and professional disgust. Amid the clutter on his desk, a miniature Reye Sedeya was gloating over his credstick while a security droid stood nearby, stolidly guarding the skinny kid and his winnings.

  Big winnings, too. The booth only accepted 1,000-credit minimum bets.

  Tambell’s mouth twisted and he thumbed off the holopad, shoving it further back in the mess. Grimacing at the taste, he drained the last tepid drops of caffa from his cup, crumpled it into a compact little ball, leaned back in his chair and carefully took aim.

  It landed in the water garden with a satisfying splash, and across the room, Corporal Valon Rizz twitched as drops spattered across the list of Imperial stop-and-detains he was scanning.

  “Blast it, Tambell, knock it off!” he growled, shooting a glare across the four desks that separated them. “You’re killing my plants!”

  Tambell grinned. “I’m perfecting my aim,” he corrected the younger investigator. “You never know when I’ll have to shoot a Rebel off your back.”

  “I’ll take my chances,” Rizz said, fishing the soggy ball out of the bowl on his desk. He frowned when he saw Tambell’s latest toss had bruised one of the delicate white lilies floating in the water. “Look at that,” he accused. “They’re looking worse every day.”

  “Oh, relax. They’re fine.” Tambell swung booted feet up onto his desk, ignoring the pile of data cards that slithered off the edge and clattered to the floor below. He crossed his arms, looking thoughtful. “Say, Rizz, what do you know about ringers?”

  Rizz snorted. “I’d stick with squad room sports, if I were you.”

  “I just caught this case,” Tambell said, as if he hadn’t heard. “Kid betting on ringer tournaments whose luck’s just too good to be true. Six bets, six wins — he’s gotta be rigging it somehow.”

  “Bribing some of the tossers to lose, maybe?” Rizz suggested.

  “That’s what I thought,” Tambell agreed. “But the credits look clean, according to Franni.” The Finance Retrieval and Net Investigations droid was a wonder at piecing together a money trail. “The kid’s winnings match his bank deposits, and Franni can’t find more than a couple hundred missing credits out of the whole pile. It would take a lot more than that to convince me to throw a tournament.”

  “So maybe they’re getting something out of it besides money,” Rizz said. Tambell looked skeptical, and the younger man shrugged. “Okay, so maybe he’s got something rigged. Some kind of repulsor field or something, so they can’t get the ring in. Or maybe he really is lucky.”

  “Nobody’s that lucky,” Tambell said. “Besides, the lieutenant says this one comes from higher up — someone on our glorious leader’s staff wants this kid checked out.”

  Rizz frowned warningly at the reference to Stassia’s Imperial Governor Tren Pergallis, under whose auspices their Special Investigations squad looked into local matters of interest to the Empire. Tambell ignored the look. “It’s not our usual kind of case, but if someone up there wants him, then we gotta get him. These ringer tournaments are like watching duracrete set, but — ”

  The squad room’s comm scanner cut him off mid-sentence, blaring out the piercing tones used to summon rescue-and-repair units, followed by the dispatcher’s impassive voice. “Assist units at the swoop track with an accident,” it said. “Swoop into a pit; confirmed fatalities. Please acknowledge.”

  Tambell met Rizz’s eyes, and they both grimaced. Swoop racing was a popular sport, but its accidents were notoriously messy. “That reminds me, you working the Sweepstakes this year?” Rizz asked. Swoop jocks had been pouring in from all over the sector to compete in the annual race day after tomorrow, and local enforcement paid triple-time to Imperial officers who helped with crowd control.

  “No,” Tambell said shortly. Even the lure of triple pay wasn’t enough to make him forget the sight of last year’s grisly wreck.

  Rizz looked at him curiously, but let it pass. “So, check out the ringers’ equipment next,” he advised. “See if this kid’s rigged up some kind of device we haven’t heard of.”

  “You’re the tech-junkie. Come with me and see for yourself,” Tambell invited. “I’ll even buy you lunch.”

  Rizz shot him a look. “Gee, thanks,” he said dryly. “The last lunch you sprung for happened to have contraband spice in it. Having my stomach purged so the inspector could get a sample was not my idea of a good time.”

  “It got us the evidence we needed, didn’t it?” he reminded the younger man. “C’mon. It’ll be fun.”

  “I thought you said watching ringers is about as fun as putting on your socks,” Rizz grumbled, nevertheless switching off his datapad and standing up.

  Tambell grinned. “Even lower,” he promised.

  Besides the ringers tournament going on in Pavilion C, there was an event Tambell vaguely recognized from the holovid going on down on the stadium’s main field.

  He watched as something resembling a humpbacked drometard trampled across the synthturf with the rest of the beasts in pursuit, but the peak of the action was blocked from view when the spectators in front of them leapt to their feet, screaming encouragement. Tambell kept walking, and a quarter of the way around the stadium, tapped Rizz’s shoulder to stop him in front of a refreshment booth.

  “What’s this?” Rizz asked suspiciously, eyeing the greasy droids behind the counter with trepidation.

  “Lunch,” Tambell said. “And hurry it up. I want to get there before the tournament starts.”

  He hid a grin as Rizz gingerly ordered, casting a glance around while the order was processed. For this time of day, a decent-sized crowd milled about the betting booths and refreshment stands. Mostly Stassians, but Tambell saw a fetching Twi’lek female studying the beast game on the holo monitors, and a gaggle of Bimms squabbling as they placed a bet at one of the far booths.

  And behind them stood Sedeya, credstick clutched at the ready.

  Tambell stiffened, eyes flicking to the booth’s 5,000-credit minimum bet requirement. Not only was the skinny kid somehow flamming them, he was making a blasted fortune at it, too.

  He nudged Rizz, nodded towards Sedeya, and they casually headed his way, stopping a few booths away. Tambell pretended to study the tournament program he’d bought downstairs while Rizz crunched his chipitas and covertly eyed the attractive Twi’lek. After Sedeya had placed his bet and hurried away, Tambell stepped up to the booth.

  But not to place a wager.

  Keying his security ID into the gambling machine, he tapped out a special access code. The machine hummed to itself for a few moments, then spit a datastub out of the slot into his waiting hand. The plastic stub contained information on the last dozen wagers placed at this booth, and it only took a moment to plug it into his datapad and discover that Sedeya had just bet 10,000 credits on Tosser Five to win today’s tournament.

  He looked up, gaze running over the various tote boards until he found the right one. With Tosser Five posting 12 to one odds, the kid looked poised to collect his biggest payoff yet.

  Tambell gritted his teeth. “Let’s get up there,” he growled, showing Rizz the amount before pocketing the datapad and heading briskly toward Pavilion C. They were 15 meters from the entrance when he recognized the men standing alertly near the door.

  Watchdogs. Hired muscle from the kennel of notorious Stassian crime madame Aalia Duu-lang.

  The back of Tambell’s neck tightened. Where Aalia went, larceny wasn’t far behind. And, as he’d found to his personal and professional chagrin, the lady and her illicit doings were damn tricky to pin
down. The aqua-eyed witch had brains, and she used them. Usually to get someone else to do her dirty work so her dainty hands stayed clean.

  Beside him, Rizz slowed in slight hesitation.

  “Yeah, I see ’em,” Tambell said. They got to the door, and he stared at the first man, then the second; a deliberate gaze that both gamely pretended not to see. They recognized him, too, and attracting an Imperial investigator’s attention wasn’t in their job description.

  He let Rizz precede him into the pavilion; a large room well-lit by the sun shining through the transparisteel skylights overhead. A stairway led down past several rows of seats to the tournament range, where multi-shaped rings hung suspended from the ceiling. Each odd shaped ring was worth a certain number of points, and the tosser with the most points at the end of four rounds won.

  “How do they start ’em swinging?” Rizz asked, studying the metal tangle.

  “Let’s go see,” Tambell said, and headed down the steps.

  Up close, the rings looked deceptively innocuous. He’d been amazed the first time he’d seen a holo of it: the rings swinging back and forth in uneven arcs or gliding around in a spiraling orbit, while the tossers toed the competition line and carefully gauged the best moment, and with how much force, to toss their little metallic disks to get them through some portion of the hoops. Though a pretty fair aim himself, Tambell was grateful his own squad room targets held still.

  Rizz eyed the rings speculatively. “There’s a couple of ways this could work.” he said. “He could polarize the rings and the disks, or equip one or the other with some kind of repulsor field. Then, no matter how well they aimed, they wouldn’t be able to make ringers.”

  “Except that all the tossers use the same equipment,” Tambell pointed out. “A pre-set device like that would keep the winner from making ringers just as much as it would prevent the losers.”

  “Hmmm,” Rizz said. “What if it were something he could control? With a remote, or something?” He half-turned to study the tiers of seats. “He could sit close by, and … ” His voice trailed off.

  Tambell turned to see what had caught his attention. The headache that had threatened earlier when he saw Aalia Duu-lang’s hired watchdogs announced its arrival with a piercing stab.

  There was the lady herself, in a box seat near the edge of the range. Lush blond hair shimmered in the sunlight, and her sea-green eyes shone as she smiled warmly at the teen sitting beside her. Tambell wasn’t fooled by her inviting manner, though he thought the bemused-looking Sedeya might be. Aalia Duu-lang hadn’t clawed her way up Stassia’s crime hierarchy on her womanly charms alone. The lady had a shrewd streak a kilometer wide, and greed was her middle name.

  He sighed, absently rubbing his forehead in a vain attempt to stave off the headache. If Sedeya and Aalia were in this together, his work was definitely cut out. Aalia had a way of covering her tracks and protecting her — er, assets.

  As if feeling their eyes upon her, she glanced up, gaze narrowing just a bit as she identified him and Rizz before negligently returning her attention to the kid at her side. “What now?” Rizz asked.

  “What else?” Tambell shrugged. “We watch ’em. See what happens.”

  They found seats close to Aalia’s box, where Tambell had a good view of Sedeya’s hands as well as his face. Gazing at Aalia with an expression of shy admiration mixed with apprehension, the kid seemed completely unaware he was being watched.

  The tournament began, and Tambell’s mouth quirked as Sedeya leaned forward to concentrate on the action, the abrupt move leaving Aalia chatting to empty air after the first toss. But besides that, there wasn’t much to see. Elbows resting on his bony knees and empty hands clasped before him in plain sight, all the kid did was stare at the tossers with unblinking intensity.

  After the first few tosses, Rizz stepped down to the edge of the range. Studying the tossers, their disks, and the rings for any tell-tale signs of trickery, he sent a look over his shoulder at Tambell, who gave him the same look right back. The tossers weren’t scoring much, but he knew from the holos that wasn’t unusual.

  Then Sedeya’s pick toed the line. Lightly fingering her disk, she swung her arm a few times as if to synchronize her movements with the swinging rings, then let it fly. Applause greeted her effort as she tossed a ringer — and through the tricky Ace ring yet, putting her into the lead.

  Through it all, Sedeya did … nothing. Not a twitch of the hand, barely a blink of the eye. As Tosser Five’s name flashed to the top of the scoreboard, Aalia slanted a curious glance at her silent seatmate. Tambell wondered if she had placed a wager on the tournament, too.

  The next seven tossers had varied success. One more managed an Ace, creating a tie going into the second round, and during the short break that followed, Tambell joined Rizz at the edge of the range. He watched as the kid slowly straightened up and blinked as if he’d been asleep, and Aalia leaned close to whisper in his ear.

  “I don’t know,” Rizz said in answer to Tambell’s unspoken question. “Hard to say without checking either him or the equipment out. But I didn’t see anything obvious.”

  They glanced over at Aalia’s box to find Sedeya looking back with a startled expression. Still pressing her shoulder to his, Aalia’s eyes were amused, but she looked taken aback when the kid suddenly stood up. She said something in a low voice and he hesitated, then sidled towards the steps anyway. Her eyes chilled at his retreating back, and the two watchdogs sitting behind rose to their feet, clearly intent on following.

  Whether to protect the kid, or get rid of evidence, the investigators didn’t know. They looked at each other. “I guess we’d better take him in,” Tambell said. “About time I had a chat with him, anyway.”

  At the door, they spotted him making tracks towards the turbolift cluster that serviced Pavilion C. Aalia’s associates had lengthened stride to catch up, and he and Rizz did the same. Sedeya was waiting for a lift with the associates loitering casually nearby when they arrived. The kid glanced at them nervously, then looked away, chewing at his lower lip.

  One of the turbolift’s doors opened, and Sedeya slunk aboard. The watchdogs made to follow, but Tambell stepped in front of them, casually pulling his vest away to display the Imperial badge and blaster attached to his belt. They hesitated, looked over his shoulder at Rizz and Sedeya standing in the lift, then reluctantly stepped back.

  He nodded approvingly, watching their wary faces until the door slid shut, then turned to survey an unhappy-looking Sedeya. As the lift sank downwards, the kid clearly wished he were somewhere — anywhere — else.

  “Sergeant Tambell, Special Investigator for the Imperial Governor,” he identified himself, watching the others face turn white. “You’ve had quite a winning streak at the ringers tournaments — haven’t you, Citizen Sedeya?”

  Sedeya flinched at the sound of his name, swallowed, and summoned the nerve to briefly look him in the eye. “I’ve been lucky,” he managed.

  Tambell nodded, pleased. If the kid was this intimidated now, perhaps with a little encouragement he’d spill it all at the station. “Well,” he said, “I regret to inform you that your luck has just run dry.”

  The first thing Tambell found out was that Sedeya was clean. Neither the scan nor the physical search turned up any kind of device like that Rizz envisioned being used to tilt the results of the tournament.

  The second thing he discovered was that the kid was incredibly inept when it came to proper criminal behavior.

  He was polite and well-mannered, albeit a bit skittish. He didn’t fuss about having a Defender present, called Tambell “sir,” and actually thanked him when offered a seat in Interrogation Room One.

  Used to dealing with surly, uncooperative suspects, Tambell sat and simply stared at him. Sedeya gazed back apprehensively, looking younger than his 19 years, and far more vulnerable than any self-respecting flammer would ever let himself be seen.

  “Um, am I under arrest, sir?” he asked tentative
ly. “You didn’t say, earlier.”

  “If it’s up to me, you will be,” Tambell said, deliberately harsh as Sedeya’s thin face paled, and he wilted further into his seat. “But no, you’re not under arrest. You’re being detained. For the moment.” he added.

  He let the kid think about that as Rizz fetched three cups of caffa then pulled a chair over and sat down so they were both facing him across the table. The seating arrangement was more calculated than chance — it was his turn to play nasty to Rizz’s nice. He waited until Sedeya was shifting uneasily in his seat before starting in. “You’re aware that fraud is a crime against the Empire, punishable by deportation to a prison world, aren’t you?”

  Sedeya nodded hesitantly.

  “Well then, explain to me how you were smart enough to figure out a way to pull it off, but too stupid to get away with it?” He watched as the kid’s expression ran through a series of emotions: shock, and surprise, before finally settling on what appeared to be confusion.

  “I — I don’t understand,” he said, uncertainly looking from Tambell’s accusing eyes to Rizz’s less judgmental ones. “What are you talking about?”

  It was a good show, but Tambell wasn’t buying the wide-eyed bit. “Six bets? Six wins?” He cocked his head skeptically. “Isn’t that a bit too coincidental?”

  The kid dropped his gaze. “I’ve been lucky,” he mumbled to the tabletop.

  Tambell snorted. “Some might say there’s more to it than that.”

  “It’s true,” he said earnestly. “I’ve always been lucky. That doesn’t mean I’ve done anything wrong. I haven’t.”

  “Listen,” Tambell said. “Nobody’s that lucky. Not without a little help.”

  “There’s no law against winning. I haven’t done anything wrong.” A trace of resentment crept into Sedeya’s tone.

  Tambell heard it. Sardonically, he offered. “Take a word of advice, kid. Most flammers go ahead and lose a few, just to throw us off track.”

  Sedeya frowned, but didn’t say anything. Tambell waited, hoping for more of a reaction. Getting suspects riled often paid rewards when they tripped up in the rush to defend themselves. “Okay, so tell me this,” he said, changing tacks when it became clear Sedeya wasn’t going to rise to the bait. “What’s your relationship with Aalia Duu-lang?”